So it worked, as I hoped, and getting the account actually did make me want to get a good set of photos which I had been putting off for so long of my forces. So here it is, I present: Minerva's Misanderers.

Group shot:The full forces of Minerva. Undead reanimated by the blood of gorgons, and shades on loan from her uncle, as well as her own personal mount, goretalon the griffin, and 4 stymphalian matriarchs, stolen from her brother Mars.

A pair of closeups showing Minerva on her mount and accompanied by her 4 matriarchs.

Minerva's ground based body guard, the Shades of Pluto. When it became her in goal to march on the kingdoms of man she approached her uncle with a request for aid. At first Pluto saw no benefit to this plan but as Minerva explained how many souls she intended to send screaming into his kingdom, Pluto became more open to the idea. He offered up the aid of two divisions the shades who's duty it was to guard the Tartarus Gate for Minerva's personal body guard and as a show of his support in her cause.

The three Gorgon sisters, including Medusa, a former priestess of Minerva. They have agreed to aid Minerva in her missions of conquest, in return for having Medusa's beauty restored, and her 2 sisters granted beauty they had never known. Their task to that end was to provide forces for Minerva. So having been enlisted, they traveled to the location of a great battle that had occurred- a massive tortoise had taken up residence near a town and destroyed many buildings, and eaten many crops. Forces of the emperor were sent to dispatch it but found themselves quite out matched. Horse and man fell dead until finally the commander himself accidentally enough defeated the great beast when he was snatched off the back of his horse by its beak but got lodged in the creature's throat... The gorgons found this place littered with the dead and set about their work. While one sister would collect together bodies, another stitched, and the third would stir the cauldron that contained blood drawn from the right sides of their bodies, known for curative powers. When they had assembled their creations they tipped the great pot and washed their new soldiers in the potion. It could not restore souls, as those were well and locked away in Hades, but it was strong enough to bring motion back to the bones and flesh they had sewn together. A biproduct they had not anticipated was that, having tipped the pot, the contents would reach as far as it did, soaking the great tortoise as well. It too rose from its place, towering over their legions of undead, they took it for their personal fortress.

The strongest of the reanimated creations were laden with heavy armor, helms, and great halberds. Barded in gold and crimson, they became the Centaur Cataphracts, the heavy shock troops for Minerva.

Arms ran out before torsos, interestingly enough, but the Gorgons were prepared for that eventuality and had improvised limbs for those who may come out needing them. Thus they created the Centaur Butchers. A much lighter cavalry unit than the Cataphracts, they're capable of much faster movement around the field, allowing them to bring heavy damage to exposed enemy positions at the cost of much less survivability. They are great support to the Cataphracts, charging in support of their heavy brothers into exposed flanks, or driving off ranged units which might harry a fight.

The centaur Outriders- armed with musket battleaxes and dual hatchet pistols, they provide ranged support for the charging melee cavalry. Additionally, when the moment is right, they can also serve well in a flank or rear charge against a distracted foe with the blades on their ranged weapons.

The artillery crews- armed with a hodgepodge of weaponry, they are tasked with firing and defending their real armaments-

The field artillery of Minerva's forces, 3 great cannons capable of firing multiple kinds of shells (round shot, canister shot, shrapnel shells), as well as 2 volley guns torn from between the realms of the universe from a plane where everything is really expensive and unpainted when you get it.

A close up of the trans-dimensional volley guns... I was really happy with how these came out.

Jesus, the concentration of awesome in this force is astounding. The skeletal tortoise is the highlight for sure (how did you even come up with this idea???), but the griffin and volley guns are impressive as well. The technique for the centaur legs is quite innovative too.

How are the volley gun barrels attached to the frame? I can see they're clipped onto bars, but are they attached to a core, or just wrapped around it?

Almost everything here is so cool! Especially that turtle. Why hasn't Zahru or anyone else ever thought of that? The head is well done, is it your own build?

What i don't like that much is the centaurs. The idea is great of course but their bodys look rather clunky. I think i liked those better that used actual minfig legs. On the other hand you are using skeleton bodies so... Anyway, the proportions are somewhat wrong imo.

So the design wasn't my own, though I did create a different build for the body because I wanted to avoid a square rump and studs all down the back. The Skeleton torso was for many reasons but one of the most important to me was the ability to pose them on a hinge with the rest of the body to allow them to buck and rear. Further reasons are scythe arms and being bad ass.

aoffan23 wrote:The skeletal tortoise is the highlight for sure (how did you even come up with this idea???)

Gotta say, i'm really appreciating the turtle love, too! It was one of my favorite builds and I was very happy with its outcome. As far as where did the idea come from? I think I started off with the fact that a lot of the armies posted on this forum and in general I've seen in tabletop games will have a large central unit as a bit of a focus point of the force. I wanted to do something like that, and already had a lot of skeletons running about. I also always like a massive creature that can be used as a mobile fortress... So I sat down at the LDD and after a couple hours I had a frame+legs+a skull and then all I needed to do was build a shell around it!

Apollyon wrote:The idea is great of course but their bodys look rather clunky. I think i liked those better that used actual minfig legs. On the other hand you are using skeleton bodies so... Anyway, the proportions are somewhat wrong imo.

By minifigure legs do you mean like modified minifigure horses with the head removed? I'm actually really happy with the centaurs (I guess that's probably obvious since I built a lot of them) but I'm curious about what you meant. It did bother me a little at first that their horse body was smaller than a normal minigifure horse body, but it faded pretty quick for me.

I meant just putting minifig legs into the bottom of e.g. a 2x4 brick and then putting a regular minfig torso on top of that. Now i have looked closer at your design and as Aoffan pointed out the legs are rather well done. i think i will try to rebuild a centaur that way. Maybe it's just your photos not giving justice to them.

Apollyon wrote:I meant just putting minifig legs into the bottom of e.g. a 2x4 brick and then putting a regular minfig torso on top of that. Now i have looked closer at your design and as Aoffan pointed out the legs are rather well done. i think i will try to rebuild a centaur that way. Maybe it's just your photos not giving justice to them.

That seems very possible, it's basically amateur hour photography open mic night all up in here on my end.